As Donald Trump continues consolidating autocratic power, the most important goal for pro-democracy activists between now and November’s election day will be defeating MAGA at the ballot box, especially in Congressional elections. Over the weeks, we will give you many ways for you to participate: donating money, writing postcards, hosting gatherings, going to swing districts to canvass and more. Let’s start with donations.
First priority: Never donate based on an email or text message. Never.
Any scammer can buy a thousand phone numbers of Democratic donors and send them a text message purportedly from Barack Obama, Bernie Saunders, or AOC with a manipulative message like “This Request is Different” or “This is a personal request for [your name]”. The link to donate might look real, like “Progressive2026.org” or something like that — but your donation goes straight to the scammer’s wallet.
Then there is Mothership Strategies, a real Democratic organization, which raises funds for real Democratic candidates with subject lines like “We have tears in our eyes” but then keeps up to 98% of the donations for themselves.
Finally, there are real PACs that make donations to Democratic candidates — selected by Republicans because they are weak candidates. In Texas, for example, Maureen Galindo is a Democrat in name only. She says Jews run Hollywood and refers to the “synagogue of Satan.” She raised little money on her own but mysterious PACs with progressive names like “Lead Left” funded her campaign and she won her Democratic primary, defeating real candidates who could have won the blue team a seat in Congress.
The bottom line is that a motivated political donor is an easy mark for scammers.
OK - so how should I donate?
Fortunately, there are many groups that work hard figuring out the most effective uses for your donations. We will highlight some of them from time to time as the election approaches. Here are a few we like:
Force Multiplier selects races where a victory is possible and impactful (i.e., not the Wyoming legislature which will remain red even if a couple wonderful blue candidates win). They set up events where you can hear from those candidates and donate to them. They also fund-raise for well-vetted groups doing democracy defense, voter registration, election protection, and voter education.
Movement Voter Project supports local, year-round organizing in key areas, instead of just blitzing districts right before an election.
Emily’s List has a long history of supporting progressive pro-choice women early on in their campaign, when funding is key.
If you want to donate directly to a candidate, we will cover that next week.
Summer Activities
If summer is giving you some time for skill-building, the Freedom Trainers are offering online workshops this month, on election defense, noncooperation and economic pressure campaigns.
The next round of protests against Citizens’ Bank’s financing of ICE prison camps is on July 18. So far 85 standouts in 7 states have been organized. Could you make it 86? (Suggestions: no one has signed up yet to stand out at the branches in Harvard Square, Kendall Square, Copley Square, Brigham Circle or Fenway).
Summer Reading: How to understand people who vote Republican
The late, great Chip Berlet studied right-wing movements by immersing himself in their gatherings for decades, and he always said that there were three key things to remember about conservatives, and even rightwing extremists: they are “not stupid, not crazy, and not evil.” So if it’s not those common assumptions, what else could it be? These 3 books (and one article) each have their own theories.
The Righteous Mind: How Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt.
Haidt describes the differing values of conservative and liberals. The subscriber who nominated it wrote, “I’ve found it very helpful toward understanding why people take political positions that would otherwise make no sense to me, and it’s also been helpful in handling relationships with friends and family.”
Is It Racist? Is It Sexist? Why Red and Blue White People Disagree, and How to Decide in the Gray Areas, by Jessi Streib and our own Betsy Leondar-Wright.
When 127 voters were asked about situations of possible racism or sexism, liberals and conservatives used different methods of approaching the questions, methods that led them to give mostly Yes answers or mostly No answers to the questions in the title. Liberal readers may be taken aback to discover that not all the irrationality is on the right.
Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back, by Joan C. Williams.
The national Democratic Party doesn’t “speak working-class,” according to this legal scholar, also the author of White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America. This new book is notable for giving advice on how to re-frame liberal issues like climate change and transgender rights to get more support from independent and conservative working-class voters.
Faith, Freedom, Family, Place - An Ethnographic Study of Conservative Americans’ Relationships to Democracy by Scott Warren and six others suggests that conservatives believe democracy has failed because it has not protected the four values in the title — and because of that failure, it is no longer legitimate.
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On this Date: On July 7, 1903, Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones, started the “March of the Mill Children”, a 125 mile march of child strikers and their families from Philadelphia to President Theodore Roosevelt’s summer house in Oyster Bay, Long Island.